Cuma, Haziran 12, 2015

"Most theories of revolution seem to agree that certain preconditions must be met if a revolutionary situation is to arise.1 The peculiar contribution of Ernesto Che Guevara to understanding revolutions is that according to him such preconditions can be created [1: 4].2 Few men in the world today would be better qualified than Guevara to sustain such theory with empiri-cal evidence from his own participation in revolutions. After his experience in Guatemala, Cuba, the Congo and, perhaps, other parts of the world, Guevara was considered, by friends and enemies alike, as one of the world's top-ranking guerrilla fighters of the twentieth century. By the time he started a new daring experiment in Bolivia he was reckoned as one of the most articulate theorists in the field. The death of Guevara in the moun-tains of Bolivia on October 9, 1967, brought commotion and mixed feelings to his enemies and admirers the world over."

Most theories of revolution seem to agree that certain preconditions must
be met if a revolutionary situation is to arise.1 The peculiar contribution of
Ernesto Che Guevara to understanding revolutions is that according to him such
preconditions can be created [1: 4].2 Few men in the world today would be
better qualified than Guevara to sustain such theory with empiri-cal evidence
from his own participation in revolutions. After his experience in Guatemala,
Cuba, the Congo and, perhaps, other parts of the world, Guevara was considered,
by friends and enemies alike, as one of the world's top-ranking guerrilla
fighters of the twentieth century. By the time he started a new daring
experiment in Bolivia he was reckoned as one of the most articulate theorists
in the field. The death of Guevara in the moun-tains of Bolivia on October 9,
1967, brought commotion and mixed feelings to his enemies and admirers the
world over. His enemies were exultant, first because the dreaded Guevara was
dead, and second because his death was 'clear evidence' that his theories were
wrong. His admirers were sad because he was dead, but were also elated because
the puzzle of his disappearance had been unraveled and because his death at the
hands of Bolivian rangers trained by a U.S. military mission, far from being
'evidence' that his theories were wrong, was 'evidence' that they were right.
In order to decide whether Guevara's theory of revolution was right or wrong a
series of value judg-ments needs to be made and the final outcome will,
naturally, be in line with these evaluative presuppositions. It is beyond the
scope of this essay to enter such discussion. It is my intention to
investigate, as dispassion-ately as I can, to what extent the empirical
evidence of the Cuban and the Bolivian experiments proves or disproves the
major generalizations of Guevara's theory of revolution. It is with mixed
feelings that I approach the subject, first because it is quite difficult to
enter such a study without taking sides, and second because of the scarcity of
documents available to the writer. It goes without saying that whatever
findings are presented in this paper are subject to further clarification and
correction when more material with evidence relevant to this subject is made
available to the public.

An
Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara's
Foco Theory

MATT D. CHILDS

Abstract.
This article provides an analysis of Ernesto Che
Guevara's theory of guerrilla warfare, the foco. The numerous changes to the
originalfoco thesis, as presented in Guerrilla Warfare (1960), are examined in
detail covering two dozen articles, speeches, essays, interviews and books
authored by Guevara, Castro and Debray while stressing their relation to
national and international politics. The author argues that there was an
apparent discourse between Cuban politics and the numerous changes in Guevara's
writings. Juxtaposing changes to the foco theory from I960 to 1967, to Cuban
historical events, reflects the political expedience of the i96os and the
primary interests of the fidelistas, specifically Guevara.

Abstract –
In order to account for Ernesto Guevara’s
dramatic swing of fate from Cuba to Bolivia, it is necessary to explore his
revolutionary theory developed in response to his experiences in the 1959 Cuban
revolution. His foco theory, which places a high degree of primacy on the
guerrilla band in creating the conditions for revolution, is starkly contrasted
by an historical analysis of the Cuban revolution, where economic, social, and
nationalistic forces combined to the benefit of Guevara and Castro. Exploring
the political climate of Bolivia at the time of Guevara’s attempted
insurrection, it becomes apparent that none of these forces were present for
the exploitation of the guerrillas, which ultimately doomed the revolution and
Guevara himself. Both the Cuban and Bolivian cases show the significance of
socio-political factors in determining the success of an insurrection, and put
the validity of Guevara’s foco theory into question.

Che
Guevara’s most enduring legacy in Cuba has been his indelible contribution to socialist
political economy and economic management. Between 1959 and 1965, Guevara set
up the budgetary finance system to prove that it was possible and necessary to
develop consciousness and productivity simultaneously in the transition to
socialism. The system was openly articulated as an alternative to the economic
management system operating in the Soviet bloc. Thus, Guevara took up the
challenge at the heart of the

revolutionary
process: achieving economic development with equity from a position of underdevelopment
without relying on capitalist mechanisms that would undermine collective consciousness
and new social relations. His approach to this problem remains relevant today
in Cuba, where his ideas are associated with the vitality of Cuban socialism. On
the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, contemporary developments, reforms,
and debates are still best analyzed in terms of their proximity to Guevara’s theory
of socialist construction.